{"id":655,"date":"2008-02-13T10:59:05","date_gmt":"2008-02-13T10:59:05","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/how-leaders-can\/"},"modified":"2008-02-13T10:59:05","modified_gmt":"2008-02-13T10:59:05","slug":"how-leaders-can","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/how-leaders-can\/","title":{"rendered":"How Leaders Can Overcome Insecurity"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>We don&#39;t like to talk about insecurities.&#0160; Let&#39;s face it, insecurities are the proverbial skeletons in the closet or baggage we&#39;ve carried around for years.&#0160; So why don&#39;t we talk about and deal with our insecurities?&#0160; Vulnerability.&#0160; With all our talk about compassion, tolerance and love you&#39;d think insecurities would be out in the open.&#0160; But here&#39;s the dirty little secret; compassion, tolerance and love are rare.&#0160; Not because we don&#39;t have it to give, but because we&#39;re preoccupied with our own pursuits, our own agendas or our own insecurities.&#0160; For example, loving someone implies sacrifice.&#0160; Don&#39;t hear a lot about sacrifice these days.<\/p>\n<p>So can leaders just keep their insecurities under the covers?&#0160; They can, but eventually insecurities have a way of getting out of bed.&#0160; When that happens people get hurt.&#0160; People at work, as well as people at home.&#0160; The better option is to overcome the insecurities and live out something that others will want to follow.<\/p>\n<p>Here are some things I&#39;ve learned and implemented to overcome insecurities:<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Admit that I&#39;ve got the baggage (insecurities).&#0160; Don&#39;t mean to sound like a step program, but admitting is a powerful tool. <\/li>\n<li>Stop looking for some permanent state of happiness and focus on joy.&#0160; Pursuing happiness is futile, because in itself happiness is a temporary state.&#0160; For example, last week I wasn&#39;t happy about the lack of response I was receiving from a newspaper.&#0160; This week I&#39;m OK, because I had time to pray and think.&#0160; Joy is your root system if you choose to let it be.&#0160; It&#39;s firm and many times immovable. <\/li>\n<li>Get mentors that love you, but are not impressed by you.&#0160; People like this will be willing to tell you the truth and ask you hard questions.&#0160; If you don&#39;t have a mentor now, you should start looking for one. <\/li>\n<li>Don&#39;t think you&#39;re alone and don&#39;t be alone in dealing with insecurities.&#0160; Isolation will kill.&#0160; Think of how the Hyena approaches attacking a lion.&#0160; Hyenas search for ways to isolate the lion.&#0160; They instinctively know that to take on a lion one-on-one or in a group would be certain death.&#0160; However, if they can isolate the lion, victory is often times certain.&#0160; So it goes with us.&#0160; If you crawl into your own corner and withdraw.&#0160; All your demons and monsters will devour you. <\/li>\n<li>Don&#39;t take yourself too seriously.&#0160; <\/li>\n<li>Find the vision inside yourself and pursue it.&#0160; I&#39;ve found that I have little time to ponder\/obsess over insecurities when I have a vision.&#0160; My urgency for dealing with my insecurities grows as well, because I don&#39;t want to be disrupted in my mission. <\/li>\n<li>Talk often with God.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>What would your organization look like if you overcame your insecurities?&#0160; Great, would be the perfect adjective.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>We don&#39;t like to talk about insecurities.&#0160; Let&#39;s face it, insecurities are the proverbial skeletons in the closet or baggage we&#39;ve carried around for years.&#0160; So why don&#39;t we talk about and deal with our insecurities?&#0160; Vulnerability.&#0160; With all our talk about compassion, tolerance and love you&#39;d think insecurities would be out in the open.&#0160;&hellip;<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[123],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-655","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-leadership-development"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=655"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/655\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=655"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=655"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.epicliving.com\/epic\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=655"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}